APPT Sydney $2200 6-Max NLHE Tournament, Part 1

Well my ‘MTT December’ got off to a good start. I played the APPT Sydney $2200 6-Handed Event yesterday and today and finished 2nd for a score of $45,600, or about $30K USD. The field was pretty small with only 113 people fronting up the buy-in. We got 8K starting stacks with 40 minute levels and blinds starting at 25/50.

At my first table I had Grant Levy (last year’s APPT Sydney Main Event Champion) on my left and Matt Kirk (saw him playing 50/100 PLO so I assume he’s decent) opposite me. Between them was some middle-aged dude whom they both seemed to know pretty well, on my right was a young Asian guy decked in headphones and all, and two to my right was an empty seat.

I tried to play as many hands as I could while the stacks were deep but unfortunately I didn’t get off to a great start and was down to 6800 when the following hand came up. Five handed Matt raised UTG to 150 and I 3-bet on the button to 475 with QQ. The blinds folded, Matt called and the flop came KxQh4h. Sweet! Matt check-called my half-pot bet on the flop, my half-pot bet on the offsuit 7 turn and then my full pot all-in bet on the 3 river with K3h. A nice double-up for me.

A little while later I opened ATo from the cutoff and Grant called on the button. We took the flop heads-up and it came TT2dd. I bet 200 into 375 and he quickly called. The turn blanked and I considered my options. My normal line here definitely is to bet, bet, bet or if permissible bet, bet, shove and hope to get called by a worse ten or a pocket pair. But I’d seen Grant’s final table on TV and distinctly remembered that he loved to bluff. So I decided to go for a c/c turn, c/r river line. The river brought a Jack which wasn’t the best river but I still went ahead and check-raised the river to 4100 and he folded.

An orbit or two later with the blinds at 50/100 I opened QJo from the cutoff, Grant called again on the button and Matt called from the big blind. The flop came Q77r and I bet about 500 when it was checked to me. Grant folded and Matt shipped all-in or 2100 more. I called and held against his 55.

At this point I was going really well and had built my stack up to 22-23K. I then opened Kings from the cutoff and the middle-aged guy called in the small blind. The flop came J42ss and he led into me for about half pot. I raised 3x and he instant shoved and I instant called. He had A3s for a huge draw and got there to win the 18K pot. I fell back down to 12K.

By this point a new player had been sitting in the previously empty seat for about three orbits and he hadn’t yet played a hand. He finally opened in MP and I looked down at Queens again on the button. I 3-bet to about 1000 and he 4-bet back. Ugh. I didn’t particularly like it but shipped it in anyway and found myself racing against AK for a 16K pot. This time I held and was back to 20K.

I got moved to a new table with DelaneyKid to my right and MonsterDong two my right. The other three players were middle-aged and seemed fairly tight, though the player two to my left seemed to splash around a bit more preflop (let’s call him ‘X’) and was a bit of a calling station postflop. I watched DelaneyKid raise from the small blind and then fire three barrels on a board that read something like A4624 (with a flush completing on the river). X called all the way down with just AT but fortunately for him it was good enough to best DelaneyKid’s A8. I have no idea if DelaneyKid was bluffing or value-betting…

But anyway that set the scene for my hand against X. DelaneyKid opened, I flatted with 67d and X called from the big. The flop came Kx8d5d and it was checked to me. I bet, X called and DK folded. The turn bricked and I had no choice but to check behind. The river bricked as well and X checked and I instantly went on tilt since whenever you flop a straight-flush draw you should automatically win in my opinion. I considered firing in case he missed diamonds but checked behind and he showed KJo.

I wasn’t getting too many hands so I had to do a couple of 3-bet bluffs to maintain my chipstack. Eventually I picked up JJ on the button five handed and shipped 17K in after MonsterDong raised and the next player re-raised (DelaneyKid had since been knocked out). When both players called (the second player all-in for less than me) I knew I was in trouble and my fears were confirmed when MD showed AA and the other player showed AKs. Fortunately the board ran QJ99x and I zoomed back up to 45K.

With 25 people left, I then got moved to a new table again and found myself five handed at a much better table. To my right was a middle-aged guy who kept folding his small blind when it was folded to him and saying ‘nice and easy eh?’ to me when he did so. I constantly agreed. Two to his right was the tournament chipleader with a stack of about 180K (average was only 45ish – to put this into perspective second place going into the final table had 160K). To my left was an old guy who definitely was one of the softest players left in the field and two to my left was a Norwegian with a shortstack.

I didn’t actually do anything of note at this table until we broke down to 18 people and Emad Tahtou was moved to my direct left. I was down to about 33K by this point but then went on a bit of a tear. I shoved AK from the small blind after one player limped in and 3-bet shoved AQs the very next hand after the cutoff raised. The next hand I picked up AJs in the cutoff with a stack of 44K and opened to 5000. The Norwegian in the big blind (who had now amassed a stack of over 70K somehow) then 3-bet me to 10000. I had a pretty tough decision at this point. Calling and folding both seemed acceptable while jamming was either super awesome or donkey terrible. I decided that there was a good chance he thought I was going nuts trying to steal the blinds and eventually decided to 4-bet jam for 44K total. He mucked after a few seconds claiming to have folded JJ. I don’t believe him but if he did then that was a really lucky break for me.

About one orbit later I thought my image was REALLY going to pay off when I picked up AA UTG. I raised to 5K and quietly fist-pumped when Morten (the Norwegian) 3-bet to 12K. I jammed when it was folded back to me and he called and flipped over AA too (with the Ace of diamonds). There were laughs all around. That is, until the flop came a freakin’ Kd Qd Jd…!!! I’ve never hoped for a split pot so much in my life and fortunately I was able to fade his freeroll.

My next key hand I defended A7s in the big blind versus a button open from the chipleader. The flop came Js7x3s (might’ve been 2s or 4s instead of 3s), giving me middle pair-top kicker and the nut flush draw. I decided to donk out and hope he raised so that I could get it all-in right away on the flop (and with some fold equity to boot). Most importantly I didn’t want to check-raise and then face a tough decision on a blank turn if I got called. So I led out for 7K into the 13K pot, he raised to 22K, I jammed for 65K total and he folded. Ship!

I then did a couple of live misclicks which cost me a bunch. In the first I raised QJc from the button and got called by the old guy in the big blind. The flop came 696cc and I decided to bet 8500 into the 13000 pot. Unfortunately I said 850 and had to bet just 2000. The turn paired the 9 and my opponent instant jammed. I smacked my face repeatedly and folded and he flipped over his AQ for two pair with the nut kicker. That’s tops champ.

As for my other misclick, I’m going to preface it with a bit of a gripe. I know it’s ultimately my fault but I’m going to gripe anyway. When you’re playing live the dealer will always say ‘X dollars to call’ when the action is on you. For this particular hour we had an obviously amateur dealer (he couldn’t count chips or organise antes at all) and in this particular hand instead of saying ‘3000 to call’ he simply pointed to me and said ‘3000’. Now usually when someone points at me and says a number like this without the addendum ‘to call’ it usually means I’ve forgotten to post a blind. So I put in my 3000 and it turns out that I’ve just limped in UTG without looking at my cards. Great.

Eventually the bubble burst with 12 left and seats were redrawn for each table. By complete chance the only change to our table arrangement was that I had swapped seats with Emad so that I was now on his left. Having won a huge pot with top set versus the chipleader’s aces he was probably close to tournament chipleader at this stage. It was a bit of an all-in fest at this point and I had mixed results. I lost TT v AK, split AK v A9, split A3d v K5s, won 88 v K6 and won JJ v K7. Overall I chipped up nicely though and found myself three handed with about 120K with a shortstack to my left and Emad to my right (who had about 200K). The other table had four players and with one more elimination we would be breaking for the night and coming back the day after for the final table.

The way the seats were arranged on my table, a pretty fortunate dynamic developed. When Emad was on the button, he couldn’t really afford to open light since he was at risk of getting shoved on by the shortstack at any time. This meant that he had to fold more buttons than he would like and it was therefore often up to me to decide whether to put the shortstack all-in. When I realised this, I quickly deduced that I didn’t actually want to eliminate the shortstack at all! Whenever I had the button I could raise Emad’s big blind and have position on him. Similarly when I was in the big blind Emad was in the small and again I’d have position on him. Essentially what this meant was that I could play heads-up poker against Emad alone until the bubble burst, except with the slight modification that I had position on him every time. Awesome! So I tried to grind away and pretty much raised every button that I could and 3-bet Emad all-in a couple of times as well when he opened himself. Whenever I picked up a hand (of which I definitely picked up way more than my fair share) I showed it in an effort to maintain some respect and overall my plan was running really smoothly.

We only really played one postflop pot and I ran my only bluff of the tournament in it. With 125K effective stacks Emad raised to 13K from the small and I called 9 more from the big with Q4c. A little loose but whatever. The flop came J93dd and he checked to me. Now in online 6-max cash games this is pretty much an open license to steal the pot since no one checks a strong hand on this flop and a lot of preflop raisers will check/fold hands like AK on this flop since it hits my range so hard. So I bet about half the pot and was really surprised to get called. No matter though, for I hit gin on the turn when the Ad fell and I fired 31K when he checked. He never has a flush here so I was prepared to fire 70K all-in on the river too if it bricked (in case he peeled the turn with a pair and a diamond) but fortunately he folded, albeit in a rather pissed off manner.

Anyway eventually I had Emad down to about 70K when the final hand occurred. The shortstack shoved all in with 65o for about 35K, Emad reshipped with KJo for about 70K, and I called with 99. My nines held up and suddenly I was chipleader going into the final table of five with a chipstack of 395,500. Second place had 161,000 and fifth had 91,000. I was guaranteed a payday of $17,000. Sweet!